| Despite widespread agreement that literature is a valuable tool for the promotion of moral and social development, little research has been done on the effectiveness of including stories in moral education, or on how young children understand stories with moral and social themes. In this qualitative study, kindergarten children in an after-school child care setting heard and discussed stories with prosocial themes (themes such as honesty, cooperation, and sharing), and they drew pictures in response to the stories. The children's drawings and videotapes of the discussions were analyzed to construct an account of how young children understand stories with prosocial themes. In addition, classroom events were also observed in order to determine whether children used ideas from the stories to guide their peer interactions.; Analysis of the data revealed that the children understood the stories at a general level. They correctly identified the major themes in the stories, and they were able to correctly label character behaviors as "good" or "bad." However, when pressed to explain why a character's behavior was positive or negative, the children frequently gave reasons different from the reasons suggested in the texts. In addition, these children did not use ideas from the stories to guide their interactions with one another. The researcher suggests several explanations for these results, based on developmental theory and analysis of the context in which the children experienced the stories. |
